Physical Therapy | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Physical Therapy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Kristi Wood
05/21/06
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Joy kneaded and prodded at her patient’s side looking for that acupressure point that would release the endorphins her patient so desperately needed. Ah, there it was, just where the arm joined the body. As she dug in deeper the magic sound floated to her ears: laughter. As a licensed therapist, Joy knew that the effects of the laughter would be maximized if alternated it with the tactile stimulation therapy. She sat back on her patient’s side and nudged her hand with her delicate pink nose until the patient began absently stroking her fur. She quickly caught her patient’s attention though and was treated to a thorough chin scratching which helped her to institute phase two of the tactile therapy known as the purring massage.

After a few circuits of inducing laughter followed by the stroking and purring, Joy retired for the evening. It wasn’t the easiest job but it was certainly rewarding. Drifting off to sleep she remembered fondly the day she received her assignment. She had just finished her training and had gone undercover at an animal shelter when a family came in to look for a kitten. She knew as soon as she saw them that the short, heavy woman was ill and needed her special kind of help. She called out to them and found the whole family well attuned to cat noises.

“Mreowww,” she said.

“Mreowww,” the woman answered with a rather passable accent.

Joy smelled the other cat smells and knew she would have to become part of a larger family. She didn’t care. This woman needed a therapist of her caliber. She wasn’t even frightened by the family dogs that greeted her when she arrived. Well, maybe she was a little scared but she went to work and tried to put the social difficulties she had with the other furred family members out of her mind. She found that her instructors were right; she soon found herself accepted, or at least ignored, by her new family and well cared for by the humans in her care.

It was now nearly a year later and Joy had established some routines with her patient. True, there were times when she could not get her patient to sit still and let her do her work. In fact, she had been trying in vain for the past two days to get full lap access. She could see the attack that was coming and wanted desperately to get a head start on the therapy her patient would need. But now that the attack had fully hit, the access had been pitifully easy. Her poor human was laid out on her couch balancing those silly cold-packs on her aching limbs. Confident in her abilities as a therapy cat Joy purred herself to sleep stretched out along her patient’s side.

“There was just nothing like the contentment that came from finding ones life-calling,” she mused. “And no pain or illness that Joy cannot cure.”

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